Zombie Rules (9 page)

             
Rick must have grown impatient with them. He answered. “Why hello bitches. Now drop those guns if you want to live.” He growled out the last sentence as he stuck the barrel of his Winchester out of a broken window. I must admit, he even frightened me a little bit.

             
The two men turned toward Rick, but did not drop their weapons. The short one spoke. “You don’t understand, we’re friendly. We just wanted to talk.” There was no friendliness in his eyes.

             
“If you still have a gun in your hand by the time I close my mouth, you’ll be talking to God. Now drop those weapons!” The taller one dropped his gun immediately. The other one just stood there and stared at Rick. He started to say something, and then tried to bring his gun up. He did not get a chance. Rick shot him square in the chest. The other man dropped down in a crouch beside our truck and looked at his weapon lying a mere foot away from him. He was temporarily hidden from Rick. He knew it and started to reach for it. I stood up then. He jumped when he saw me, and immediately raised his hands. I ordered him to stand up as Rick walked around and faced him. “Who the hell are you and why did you come after us?” He asked.

             
“I’m Chad. Chad Smith. Why’d you kill Frodo for Christ’s sake? We just wanted to talk to you guys!” His whole body was now shaking and he was having trouble talking without stammering.

             
Rick poked him in the chest with his rifle. “You are a Goddamned liar is what you are Chad Smith. You two came after us with weapons. You jumped out of your car with guns in your hands. And then your stupid friend chose to point a gun at me. By the way, Frodo was a character in The Lord of the Rings. He was an honorable and heroic man. One of my favorite characters of all time.” Rick nodded toward Frodo’s lifeless body. “Your friend was neither honorable nor heroic.”

             
Chad looked at his recently deceased acquaintance. “His real name was Francis” He said. Rick snorted in contempt and spat. He reached over and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of Chad’s shirt pocket. He lit one and blew the smoke in Chad’s face. “Are you going to kill me?” He asked weakly.

             
“Any reason why we shouldn’t? You were going to kill us.” I asked.

             
“No sir!” I think he directed it toward me, although it was obvious he was a couple of years older. “I swear to God we weren’t. We…we’re just hungry. We haven’t had anything decent to eat in a while. Just scraps of food that’s past its expiration date. ” Tears started rolling down his face.

             
“What’s your story?” He looked at me blankly. “How did you guys survive, where did you come from? All that stuff. Tell me everything. Be truthful,” I pointed at Rick. “He doesn’t like being lied to.”

             
Chad hastened a glance at Rick. Rick stared at him without emotion. His long hair was tied back in a ponytail and about a month’s growth of beard covered his face. Crow’s feet were permanently etched around his eyes. He looked like a cold-blooded killer. He must have been a mean mother back in his ‘Nam days. “Uh, well, we both are college students at Vanderbilt. Or we were. When everyone got sick, we went to his parents’ house. They were vacationing in Aruba at the time.” He looked at Rick cautiously. “Frodo’s parents are very rich. Or, they were. I guess they’re dead now.” He glanced down, lost in thought. Rick poked him again. “Oh, yeah. Well, we just holed up in his parents’ house until the food ran out. We broke into a couple of the neighbor’s houses, ran into some zombies. You know.”

             
“Have you run into anybody else that wasn’t infected?” This question seemed to make him nervous. It seemed odd, but then it dawned on me. “You two fuckers have been killing people, haven’t you?” I phrased it as a question, but I already knew the answer. Rick poked him in the chest hard. “Answer me.” I demanded.

             
He started sobbing now, but it did not seem real, contrived more likely. “I didn’t want to. We came across an older couple yesterday. They wouldn’t share their food with us, so Frodo shot them. I tried to tell him not to do it, but he did it anyway.”

             
“And you cried for them the whole time you ate their food I bet. Did you give them a Christian burial, or did you leave them lying where they fell?” Chad continued sobbing. He could not answer. He didn’t need to. Rick and I knew the answer.

             
I could see the look on Rick’s face. He was ready to execute Chad. Chad looked downright pitiful at that moment. His clothes were dirty, his face unshaven and oily. His hair was downright greasy from too many days without soap and water, and he was very skinny. We must have looked like aliens to him. We had showered and put on clean clothes this morning. I shaved off the little scruff of whiskers that I had, and even though Rick had a full beard, it was neatly trimmed. It was scraggly as hell until last night when I made a passing comment that he’d never get a woman looking the way he did. The next thing I know, he was in the bathroom with a lantern and some scissors, trimming away.

             
Rick looked over at me. I shrugged my shoulder as if to say, I don’t give a shit if you kill him. Rick nodded and raised his rifle. At the moment he was about to pull the trigger, a couple of zombies came around the side of the building. When they spotted us they started moaning in ecstasy and made a beeline toward us. The two of us shot quickly. Rick scored a direct hit between the eyes. My aim was off just a bit, my bullet grazed off of the cheekbone of my target. It continued a loping charge at me. I took aim and shot again. Bull’s-eye. It dropped in a heap. Rick walked over to them, looked them over to make sure they were dead, and started laughing. He pointed. “You just killed a cop!”

             
I looked at the zombie. His tattered rags were the remains of a police officer’s uniform. His badge was gone, but he was still wearing a duty belt, although his gun was missing. I chuckled just a bit. Chad spoke up. “It’s the noise. Those things are attracted to noise.” He looked around. “There will be more of them coming soon. A lot more. We should get out of here.”

             
I made a decision then. Killing in self-defense was one thing. Killing a zombie was about the same. Killing a man in cold blood was still murder. I was not at that point in my life. At least, I didn’t think I was. I walked over to Chad’s gun. It was a twenty-two caliber Ruger revolver. I unloaded the bullets and handed him the gun. I got a couple of cans of beans n’ weenies and a can of peaches out of the truck and handed them over as well.

             
“Chad, my name is Zach and my friend here is Rick. I want you to get in your car and drive off. If you ever come at us with a gun again, somebody is going to die. Got it?” He nodded quickly. “You should leave before Rick decides to kill you anyway.” Chad walked quickly toward his car. He paused momentarily as he walked by Frodo’s body. He looked up at Rick as he got in his car, thinking that maybe we were just playing a game with him and Rick was going to shoot him anyway. Or maybe he was memorizing Rick’s face for the future. In any event, Rick started caressing his rifle, which sent a message to Chad. The message was, get the fuck away from us. He got in the Beemer and hastily drove away.

             
I got a can of spray paint out of the truck and marked the liquor store with the standardized FEMA symbol, which was a big X, a date, any special information, and showed the building had been searched. I then spray painted something else on the wall.

ZOMBIE RULE #1: YOU HAVE TO GET THEM IN THE HEAD. I thought for a minute and then added RULE #2: THEY’RE ATTRACTED TO NOISE.

              Rick looked at it and chuckled. He grabbed the can and added a big Z at the bottom. “Always sign your work.” He grinned. “Okay Zach, where to next?”

             
“Well hell, let’s get out of here before the zombies come. How about we head back to the Lowe’s Store.”

             
Rick’s expression saddened suddenly. “No more liquor stores?”

             
We spent the rest of the day driving around looking for anything we could use and generally checking everything out. The city of Franklin was total mayhem. There were remnants of traffic accidents everywhere, which caused traffic jams, which caused abandoned vehicles. There was plenty of evidence of zombie attacks, and there were zombies aimlessly wandering everywhere. Our protected windows kept them from getting to us, although they tried. It was morbidly amazing. They would try to claw their way through the thick hardware cloth. The skin and nails of their fingers would be ripped and torn, but they seemed oblivious to any pain.

             
Rick would drive slowly checking each one out. Sometimes he would drive over them, giggling gleefully when he heard the sound of a skull being squished, but he also used the opportunity to test fire a Kimber 45 caliber handgun he had taken off of Frodo. He would drive up to a Zombie and shoot them. Then he would exclaim, “Man this is a sweet gun!” After the fourth of fifth time he did that, I begged him to quit. Firing that large caliber handgun within the confines of the truck made it very loud. I managed to stick my fingers in my ears a few times before he shot, but they were still ringing.

             
“Did you see that last one I shot?” Rick asked. He had earlier found a bottle of Jack Daniels under a back seat of the fire truck and had eschewed the pure grain alcohol in favor of the sour mash whiskey. “If she weren’t a Zombie, she would have been a good looking piece of tail.” I chuckled. “She was certainly admiring your beard.” I checked my watch. It was a little after three. “We should head back. We want to give ourselves plenty of time to get home before dark. Which reminds me, we need to find some night vision equipment for any low light work.”

             
Rick belched and scratched his beard. I hoped he didn’t have lice. “I already have night vision equipment. Give me something to eat.”

             
I got one of his infamous lard biscuits out of the cooler and looked at him. “Why didn’t you say so? What else are you holding out on?” Rick glanced over and chuckled mischievously while scarfing it down.

             
Rick was starting to get into his cups, so at my insistence, we swapped seating positions. About three miles into our journey back I started picking up glimpses of a vehicle following us in the rearview mirror.

             
“I have to make an admission.” Rick had taken the jug of tea I had made and poured the contents of the pure grain alcohol into it. I tried it. It tasted awful and handed it back to him. He took a sloppy swallow and looked at me questioningly. “It would seem as though there are more survivors than I had previously estimated. In addition to Chad and the recently deceased Frodo…” Rick frowned at me. “I mean, Francis. It seems as though we now have somebody else following us.”

             
“No shit?” Rick exclaimed while looking back. “Well I believe you’re right. I wonder what they have in mind.” His brain activity was in slow motion now, due to drunkenness, but I learned to never underestimate the old man. He pointed at a boat on a trailer on the side of the road.

             
I looked at it incredulously. I could not help but think, why in the hell would someone be hauling their boat when they were fleeing for their lives? They must have apparently realized the absurdity of it at some point, and opted to park it on the side of the road. They had covered it with a tarp, as if they were going to come back for it later.

             
“Pull over about twenty feet in front of that boat.” Rick said. “See if you got enough room to hide inside it with your rifle.”

             
I parked and quickly ran back to the boat. I climbed up, checked for any sailor zombies, and climbed inside it shortly before our tail came into view. Rick got out and raised the hood of the truck. He hid the Kimber in his waist under his jacket and put his rifle under the truck. Now it was just a matter of time.

             
They came into view within a few seconds. Rick gave me a running commentary while I lay hidden under the tarp.

             
“The dumb shits just drove up. They’re about two hundred yards away. When they spotted the truck they parked on the side of the road. I guess they think they’re invisible or something. Well, we’ll see who has the most patience. We can’t let them follow us back to the farm Zach.” I agreed silently.

             
“Well it didn’t take long.” Rick spoke quietly. I heard their car creeping along the asphalt. “Oh shit Zach, there’s a couple of women in the car. A man too. Along with a little kid. Damn.” I heard the car stop, probably close to Rick. “Howdy.” Rick said with an exaggerated slur in his speech. There was a muffled voice reply and then a car door opening. “Well I’ll be. I haven’t seen any live people since I don’t know when. Where the hell have you folks come from?” I slowly raised my head just enough to see through a gap between the tarp and the boat. An older man had exited the car, a dirty gray minivan. Chrysler I believe.

             
“Well sir, we’re from Fayetteville. Tennessee that is, not Fayetteville, North Carolina. We were told there is a FEMA camp in Nashville. It’s supposed to be set up in the Titan’s football stadium. Do you happen to know anything about it?”